Under The 'dar

 NATIONAL SECURITY -- A STRONG CARBON CAP WOULD CUT IRAN'S PETRODOLLARS BY MORE THAN $100 MILLION PER DAY: As the United States and other countries debate new sanctions on Iran for its failure to suspend work on its nuclear program, another potent sanction option may have emerged from an unlikely place: climate change policy. According to a Progress Report analysis, a strong U.S. cap on carbon would cut the flow of petrodollars to Iran. Based on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economic analysis of a carbon cap that reduces global warming pollution by 80 percent by 2050, The Progress Report has found that Iran would lose approximately $1.8 trillion worth of oil revenues over the next 40 years -- or more than $100 million a day. Because the U.S. is the world's biggest oil consumer, outstripping the consumption of the four next biggest consumers -- China, Japan, India, and Russia -- combined, unilateral U.S. action to reduce carbon emissions and oil consumption would profoundly effect on the world oil market. Iran benefits from approximately $120 billion of petrodollars a year at current oil prices and uses its oil "as a strategic asset" in its relations with countries like the U.S. A strong carbon cap that siphons money from Iran could also be more effective than gas sanctions, an idea approved by the House and Senate to restrict Iran's refined petroleum imports. George Washington University's Hossein Askari said these gas sanctions could even backfire, actually freeing up revenues for the Iranian government and alienating the Iranian public. 

Let The Sun Shine In......